Make Spirits Move Again [Merged]

[Crimthan.9308]

Per title... Make Spirits Move Again...
It was the coolest thing ever when it was implemented years back, then it was taken away.
I've read the posts in the last year or so pointing out the nerfs etc.

If spirits are going to be bad and hardly anyone is interested in playing them (especially in WVW),
Then why not make them move and follow the ranger again?

[Beddo.1907]

I like the current spirits way more than the past full bar of spirits I need to recast over and over on cd.

[Sirius.4510]

Spirits are routinely used in support builds - heal druid particularly, and I think even quickness untamed uses one as a might source. They're not dead. Not being persistent entities does take them away from the GW1 spirit feel a bit, sure, but they were the most annoying part of playing druid before they got reworked.

[Dadnir.5038]

38 minutes ago, Sirius.4510 said:

Not being persistent entities does take them away from the GW1 spirit feel a bit

There are a lot more things other than "not being persistent" that take them away from GW1 spirit feel. Spirits in GW1 are a double edge swords and that's not something that GW2 spirit ever was. The "active" part also take them away from GW1 feel... Well, you get me, GW2 spirit feel have always been very far away from GW1 spirit feel.

The more I look at GW2 the more I think that GW1's skills and build/profession mechanic were superior in design.

[Thornwolf.9721]

I agree, please let us bring the spirits on a walk about again... I liked having them as a small zoo 😄

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

I pefer the way they are, I just wish they properly scaled them and not have them get screwed over by shock aura.

[Connla Dda.9407]

Hej, at the moment playable elites from Ranger are two more less. Entangle and Strength of the Pack. I do not consider specialisation ones atm. Please provide us more diversity and reduce cooldown of Spirit of Nature. Ideally to 60 sec. in WvW and PvP. I know it is powerfull ressing 5 allies but we truly lack of diversity. And regeneration it provides goes well with other Ranger traits. Well, at least 90 seconds? 120 sec. is too long for 4 x 3 sec regen in my opinion. Make ranger ressing bot again. As Search and Rescue is not valid anymore due to dead pet all the time. Thank you in advance.

[Zyreva.1078]

Spirit of Nature does not need a shorter cd.  What could be improved is the delay and short range, but even now it is already a viable skill and certainly better than SotP in most cases (pretty much always when you are not alone).

[SeTect.5918]

If it was just the regen and condi cleanse, i would be in for a shorter cooldown, but ressing 5 people is kinda strong and justifies the cooldown.
Reducing its cooldown in PvE would be fine because ressing doesnt have such a high value there (maybe from 120 to 90 sec), but in WvW and PvP insta ressing multiple players is a really strong mechanic and shouldnt have a low cooldown, because it changes up the whole fight.

Ranger needs better elite skills outside of elite specs, yes. An elite signet or elite trap would give ranger that, but these dont exist.
But thats actually the problem with lots of the existing classes.

Making existing elite skills too op in specific situations isnt the way tho.
Imagine you have a 5v5 and everyone runs a skill that insta resses 5 people on 60 sec cooldown. It would kinda be a never ending fight because this mechanic is just too strong to be on low cooldowns (actually i hate mechanics like that and imo insta-ressing-5-players-mechanics shouldnt even exist in pvp and wvw).

[Connla Dda.9407]

Tested it today in WvW, and guess what? It is worthless. 1,5 second cast time is too long. Our downed players were not ressed a single time due to they were killed before Spirit of Nature were casted. I tried 5 times, 5 times without any result. So another argument goes on to change this particular elite skill.

[Beddo.1907]

6 hours ago, Connla Dda.9407 said:

Tested it today in WvW, and guess what? It is worthless. 1,5 second cast time is too long. Our downed players were not ressed a single time due to they were killed before Spirit of Nature were casted. I tried 5 times, 5 times without any result. So another argument goes on to change this particular elite skill.

I use it from time to time and get 2-5 resses. The trick is to use it on people that are protected by target cap and not on top of red sea of aoe or people that get pulled into enemy zerg.

[Zyreva.1078]

Most other rez skills have an even longer cast time (2s) and yet are considered some of the strongest and most impactful skills in PvP/WvW. And if timed properly, Spirit of Nature can be just as useful.

I have used it a couple of times in small scale and while i don't always get the rez off, mostly because i get interruped (outnumbered and without an entire zerg to protcet me after all) or because my ally mistforms right when i want to rez them, it has also turned arround a lost fight more than once. I even used it to self rez in solo fights a few times.

[Lazze.9870]

The actual "problem" with it is that most of the time you'd wanna use it, you're already playing druid and are better off just using the elite glyph which just happens to have half the cooldown.

It's not a bad skill.

Edited May 1 by Lazze.9870

[Connla Dda.9407]

Hej again, on top of all mentioned above, till the ress is still 3/4 sec to Spirit do the slam the ground to ress allies. If the spirit survives that long. So 1,5 sec cast + 3/4 sec animation and feature. No way it will be faster then Warrior's banner, which have cast of 2 sec and kill enemies. If Ranger will cast Spirit of Natute same time as Warrior his banner, Spirit of Nature will not be fast enough to do the ress before banner kills downies. Please rework this elite skill. So we, rangers, can have proper ressing tool. Thank you in advence.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Garbage tier skill needs 1s cast time and maximum 90s CD to compete with Glyph of Stars.  

Or it needs to teleport rezzed allies to its location to justify the CD.  If it worked like a mass 'search and rescue' then I could see more use and justification for the cast times and CD.  

[SeTect.5918]

I think the cooldown is designed with having "Nature's Vengeance" in mind which lets each spirit shake 2 times. So it would effectively revive 10 instead of 5 players.

[Lazze.9870]

On 5/10/2024 at 5:53 AM, Connla Dda.9407 said:

If the spirit survives that long.

You kind of lose all credibility on your opinion on how strong a spirit skill is if you haven't realised that this isn't relevant anymore. 

The skills isn't garbage. However, if Anet wanted to improve it, they could reduce the cooldown to 90, flip the two effects so it does the revive first and then smash for the condi to boon conversion, shake for the regen, and then smash again for more condi to boon conversion if traited. You lose the potential of the delayed revives after its first inital slam which makes it kind of unique in WvW (especially fun with the mercy relic).

Or, drop the inital cast time to 1 second.

Edited May 18 by Lazze.9870

[PrinceValentine.9320]

this skill was one of the most annoying skills in pvp back in vanilla days and you want it to be buffed?

Elite Spirit is fine as it is. 

[latlat.4516]

On 4/12/2024 at 3:20 PM, Crimthan.9308 said:

f spirits are going to be bad and hardly anyone is interested in playing them (especially in WVW),

? Spirits are used in wvw. 

 

Sorry,  but the previous designs were not that cool imo, they were just gadgets. At least now they are actual skills. 

 

On 4/15/2024 at 5:41 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

The more I look at GW2 the more I think that GW1's skills and build/profession mechanic were superior in design

Funnily enough, I think the exact reverse. I've played a bit of gw1 lately and the actual game system was great for the 2000's. At least gw2 design is in the standards of today's mmo pvp gameplay (as long as you don't consider "mashing buttons on action mode" today's standards). 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

On 4/15/2024 at 10:56 AM, Sirius.4510 said:

Spirits are routinely used in support builds - heal druid particularly, and I think even quickness untamed uses one as a might source. They're not dead. Not being persistent entities does take them away from the GW1 spirit feel a bit, sure, but they were the most annoying part of playing druid before they got reworked.

In PvE, sun spirit and storm spirit are both good DPS tools (they're both the 2nd best damage utility on core, behind viper's nest and frost trap respectively), and on condition quickness untamed sun spirit is also a might source (storm spirit does fury which is way worse but it works as a damage tool). Condi druid can also use sun spirit over Glyph of alignment because it doesn't shift versions (unlike the Glyph, which you might want to hit for damage while in CA but not be able to because the skill changes).

 

They're pretty decent damage skills and enable core builds for damage and support builds for boons.

[asterix.9614]

Yea, I used to love going uw with a lot of dolphins swimming with me, sigh. Gw2 conspiracy, they hate dolphin, they even removed Echo from the desert bl 

[Connla Dda.9407]

Hej again, i must say i am a bit disappointed with "June 25 Balance Update Preview" information that reduction of cooldown is only for PvE. It is a step in good direction, but not so bold enough. It should be done too for PvP and WvW in my opinion.

Moreover we tested yesterday, and another functionality is disturbed. When ally is down, and mesmer uses on it "illusion of life" this ally wents up for certain amount of time. Now when you use Spirit of Nature (i do not know about warrior banner but i predict it is the same) on this ally, illusion of life functionality stays. So Spirit skill is wasted. It should "overrite" illusion of life in my opnion and fully ress ally. Please consider my request.

[Bastrii.3047]

I actually prefer the Spirits for general play overall. In HealCondi druid, running Storm Spirit isn't terrible because it gives two dazes and a decent amount of flat damage (14k on a double crit in Celestial gear). While not busted, it's at least somewhat viable (and can do more damage than some other traps in open world). Throwing down Storm/Sun spirit and popping CA before dropping CA3/5 is pretty potent, as long as you have Nature Magic with the Double Slam. The boons it gives helps in small groups or just general solo play, so it can offset some of the DPS loss.

And just looking at the flat numbers, if I have double slam, I get like... 18k damage out of Sun Spirit, over the 6.5k damage out of Flame Trap. The cooldown difference is 5 seconds, and they both hit the same amount of targets... and Sun Spirit also blinds, twice. I guess Fire Trap is good because it applies a Fire Field, which you can combo if you're smart - but I think overall Sun Spirit is *better*, even with the cooldown differences (that being just 5 seconds).

The only real issue is using it in PvP. Longer cooldown, not as potent, lots of time to react, can be blocked... on top of this, for play in general, you have to sacrifice either Skirmishing or Survival to take Nature Magic, which is fine on druid, but pointless on something like Soulbeast.

It's really best suited as a burst on someone who already can't move, or in PvE for the huge radius it covers. Or just giving boons.

My damage is kinda stuck at around 18k dps while providing full uptime on a lot of boons (boondps I guess), though none of which are alacrity or quickness so what's the real point? If I take alac in druid, I might as well full aheal because my damage is kitten in CA.

Edited June 1 by Bastrii.3047

[asterix.9614]

Spirits when summoned uw are dolphins and Echo is the dolphin that used to be in the desert map of wvw.